


Change

by RyanWritesStuff



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Post-regeneration, Pre-Regeneration, Regeneration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 05:51:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11961042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyanWritesStuff/pseuds/RyanWritesStuff
Summary: Alone and broken at the end of his life, the Twelfth Doctor undergoes a harrowing and rather trippy mental journey as he furiously attempts to stave off his oncoming regeneration.





	Change

**Author's Note:**

> So, I wrote this one inspired by the announcement of Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor, kind of whipped it up in a bit of a frenzy and I feel like this is as good a place as any to start on here! Hope you enjoy it, more of these to come!

  “Change…”

  The Doctor growled, blinking several times through increasingly heavy eyelids. His eyes were heavy. His head was heavy. His arms were heavy, his legs were heavy. He was burdened, and felt more burdened than perhaps he’d felt in a long time.

  “No…no, not again…”

  His hands flared into light, gold radiance trailing from his old fingertips into the air. For a moment, it felt glorious. It felt like all of his burdens were gone…all but the one in his mind, the one that filled every iota of him with rage and bitterness, and he gritted his teeth and snarled.

  “ _No!_ ”

  The light faded as he clenched his hands so tightly into fists that his nails split the skin of his palm, and he hissed a ragged breath. The pain was almost refreshing, it reminded him he was alive; that this old body of his could still feel, could still live and breathe, could persist. He trudged onwards, his boots dragging in the snow…

  “Snow…” The Doctor muttered to himself.

  Why was there snow?

  He didn’t recall there being snow, he recalled…ashes. Ashes and fire, and Bill, and there had been no stars. The Master, and the Master, they’d both been there…and then they hadn’t been. The battle had ended, and he’d won. He must have won.

  He needed to have won, or else it was all for naught. The agony that coursed through his veins right now as the scent of the snow filled his nostrils…a smell so familiar.

  He blinked, shaking his head, every movement of his neck sending a fresh surge of pain through him.

  He remembered.

  Fragments of memories from long ago, threads of remembrance linking together. The Cybermen. They had been the connecting factor.

  They’d been there back then, too.

  As his vision blurred, he raised his head and looked ahead, and there he saw himself. It was a version of himself that he could scarcely remember, so long had it been. That young Doctor who looked so old, that young immature man who walked with a cane and lived in a junkyard and sent Susan away. Irascible and irritable, and forgetful.

  One personality among many the Doctor had had over his long, long life…and as he watched, the younger Doctor let out a groan of pain as gentle white light burst from his skin, from his very flesh. It faded quickly, and with it the very surroundings faded too into impenetrable darkness and a polished black stone floor.

  The Doctor blinked, still painfully trudging forward, every step costing him more effort than the last as he set eyes upon himself once again. Long bowl cut. Great shaggy fur coat. A face that could be as kind as it was stern. He’d been a prankster, more whimsical than his prior self. The Doctor had enjoyed being that one…so long ago now.

  A voice, dim and echoing and so old the Doctor barely recognised it as his own rang out through the otherwise silent surroundings.

  “Is this some sort of joke?!”

  The Doctor knew what he was about to see, and even as he watched, golden light started to flare up from his clenched fists again.

  “ _I. Said. **NO!**_ ” The Doctor roared, slamming his fists against his own sides as he fought the regenerative energies back, forced them down once more. Even as he did, the younger Doctor before him stiffened up and let out an anguished yell, and the scene shifted once more, hazy and dreamlike around him.

  He was in UNIT headquarters, and it was the 1970s on Earth, or possibly the 1980s, he’d never been able to recall. The room was empty, and its edges shimmered and wavered.

  There on the ground. There he was. Wise and hale, a man of action and science alike. A luxurious shock of hair, impeccable velvet clothing. He was quiet and charming, even now as he died, Metebelis having claimed him even as he faced his dreads and fears. The Doctor’s face was thunderous as he watched his younger self exhale a long, pained breath, a breath that carried with it the promise that everything was going to be alright.

  Charming to the last.

  He’d been so naïve.

  The Doctor screwed up his eyes, refusing to watch his surroundings dissolve around him once more even as his younger self shifted once more, and a cool breeze whipped at the hem of his coat, through the curls of his owl-like hair.

  He was in a field, near the great radio telescope of the Pharos Project that wavered above him, and there he was on the ground once more. Bug-eyed and eccentric, he had an enormous grin on his younger face. He hadn’t cared a jot back then about the change, not a jot. The Doctor wished to feel that young, that carefree again. He’d been so unusual, so brash and bold in his own way that he’d almost arranged the circumstances of his regeneration perfectly for himself.

  Even as he watched, the younger Doctor began to shift features. For a moment there was a burst of white, and then it was done, and the scene dissolved once more around him.

  Had he been more conscious, more stable, less agonised, the Doctor would have devoted more time to wondering what this trap was, what this plan was. He hadn’t the time nor the mental faculty to devote to it, though. He just kept walking forwards, implacable in his gruelling determination.

  There he was, on the ground once again. Young, younger in form than he’d ever previously been. Dashing in his own way, quiet and thoughtful, almost poetic in nature despite the bizarre cricketeer’s garb he’d chosen to clad himself in from the TARDIS’ selection. He lay there, and the Doctor recalled that he had in fact believed that he was not going to regenerate but rather die, for good. At the time he had fought it off. He had struggled halfway across Androzani’s surface, sacrificed himself for the good of another and now he lay dying because of it.

  He had struggled furiously to regenerate rather than perish.

  Now he struggled furiously not to.

  Even as the thought occurred to him, his body spasmed with pain as another rush of energy exploded in every cell of his body, and he gritted his teeth and stood still, breathing heavily and emitting a long, drawn-out growl of pain and rage as he shook it off once again, glaring holes through the ground as if hoping it would open and swallow him up.

  “ _Stop,_ ” the Doctor hissed to himself. “ _Enough._ ”

  The scene around him had already dissolved again, flashing by quicker and quicker now as his agony and pain grew second by second, threatening to overwhelm him.

  He was clownishly clad, fond of carrot juice, and prone to speaking his mind without thinking about it. He had tried to strangle his friend and had subsequently wept when he had lost her. He had developed a sense of justice, and strength, and great morality, and then he had been killed in a tragic accident engineered by a rival, regenerating on the TARDIS floor.

            _Flash._

  He was short, and he wore an amusing vest and carried an umbrella. He was fond of games, and tricks, and then he’d gotten too fond of tricks. He was a schemer who lost sight of the smaller things in favour of the larger, and he had alienated himself time and time again, and then he had expired on an operating table as a surgeon tried to remove bullets.

            _Flash._

  He was romantic and dashing and brave and tortured all in equal measure. He’d wandered the length and breadth of eternity, he’d passed through countless dimensions and timelines, he’d seen things the likes of which could scarcely be visually represented even by his memories. He’d worn the clothes of a poet, and then he’d lost everyone and everything he held dear. The universe had started to burn as Skaro and Gallifrey went to war, and he’d refused to fight until others made the choice for him.

            _Flash._

  He was old now, and got only older still. He was the Doctor no longer but a warrior born, the scourge of the Daleks, the greatest soldier in the universe. He had saved and condemned worlds by the dozens, and been reviled and beloved by his own people in equal measure. He had been alone, truly alone, until the very end when he became the Doctor again and regenerated, happy at last even though he would inevitably forget.

            _Flash._

  He was bitter and lonely for so long, haunted by memories that didn’t tell the full story, and then he finally allowed himself to go back to Earth and he fell in love once again, and he travelled with her and wore a leather jacket, and they danced. In the end he chose to be a coward, and he’d been proud of that choice. She’d saved him, and he died happy once again, perfectly ready for whatever came next.

            _Flash._

  He was young, and handsome. He was skinny and stylish, and he had an ego tempered by kindness, and whenever it wasn’t, he could back it up. He was more in love than ever as he saw the universe through brand new eyes, and then he lost his love, and then he mistreated his friends, and then he was forced to lose his very best friend by his very own hands. He felt hollow and angry by the end, sick of loss and tired of the universe, and in the end he died alone and miserable, shattering the TARDIS as it burned around him and the voices sang.

            _Flash._

  He was even younger now, and excitable and whimsical and merry. He was a creature of contradictions, a man who fixed problems as readily as he fixed his bow tie that everyone liked to mock so much, and when he couldn’t fix those problems, his sadness and temper were almost immeasurable. He felt more like the Doctor than he’d felt in a long time, and he was alien and mysterious just as much as he was lovable and kind. He’d burn down an entire world in anger and then he’d eat fish fingers and custard, and over time he’d mellowed out, and then he had guarded Trenzalore for almost a millennium and he had died content with his work, cheerful and satisfied in his TARDIS.

            _Flash._

  He was here.

  The Doctor remembered the early stage of his change well. Identity crises had consumed him, those who had been his friends had found him strange and too different, and he had been unable to settle on himself. He hated himself as much as he thought he was brilliant, and every time he thought he was beginning to figure it out, he realised he was no closer. He’d lost more, both of his friends, his loves, and of himself. He found Gallifrey again, and he couldn’t go back. He’d been tortured for four billion years and never cracked. And then he’d been shot by a Cyberman on a nameless ship, and his death had begun.

  He did not crack.

  He was the Doctor.

  Clara was gone.

  River was gone.

  Nardole was gone.

  Bill was gone.

  They were all gone, and the pulses of energy through his body reminded him that soon, he would be too.

  “Not again! No!” He bellowed at himself, roaring at his own body, at his own mind. “Not again! Never again! I can’t keep doing it! Every time, rebuilding from scratch only to lose it all again! _What’s the point?! Why bother?! I will not change **again**!_ ”

  He panted with effort, finally stopping his walk as he looked down at the ground, suddenly feeling so small and so fragile.

  “…I can’t do it again.”

  His eyes were so old and tired and bitter, and he couldn’t imagine anything else.

  All he wanted was to see something fresh.

  To see something new.

  A new scent hit him, the smell of grass and flowers and old wood.

  He looked upwards.

  The Doctor found himself standing in a woodland plain, broken down old stumps, trees and branches surrounding him; a small chunk of stone wall from some old ruin. In the distance stood the telltale blue glint of his TARDIS, so bold and blue amidst the green of the forest.

  And there, standing in front of him, a smile on her face, eager and excited and _ready_ …

  There she was.

  He knew it instantly, but he had to be sure.

  “…You?”

  She nodded silently, opening her hand to reveal the shimmering key to the TARDIS held within it. She was potential unbound, she was a future he hadn’t suspected, she was the proof that he _had_ a future at all, and as he looked into her eyes that brimmed with confidence and anticipation, he suddenly felt his last and greatest burden lift from himself.

  “…Hello, Doctor,” he said to her as his voice faded.

  “Hello, Doctor,” replied the Doctor with a grin on her face. “Looking forward to meeting me?”


End file.
